


Alternate World

by RunningHaunted



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Horcruxes, M/M, Manipulative Tom Riddle, Minor Character Death, Playing with the laws of magic, Slow Burn, Soulmate AU, Time Travel, denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, where your soulmate‘s thoughts appear in script on your wrist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-23 00:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13775871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunningHaunted/pseuds/RunningHaunted
Summary: It had been so simple, really.(And then it hadn’t.)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhh yeah, so my grammar isn’t the best and I actually prefer to write stories in the language I’m fluent in, sooo... anyway, I hope some people will be able to enjoy this smol fanfic. :)  
> And remember, dear readers: if you do not like this particular ship don’t be rude about it and just find another story.  
> Everyone else: have a cookie and enjoy! ;)

~~It had been so simple, really.~~

~~Go back.~~

~~Learn.~~

~~Return.~~

The scrawl on the inside of his wrist was messy this time. As if written in a dazed hurry.

_You’re here. You’re here. You’re alive. You’re finally here!_

And on it went.

Over and over again.

The words disappeared and reappeared.

The elegant slope of each letter almost mesmerizing, even in this obvious state of distress the writer was in.

~~Alas: nothing ever went according to plan in his life.~~

There was a flicker of... _something_ in the reader’s mind. Something that had been eerily dormant until then. Something he hadn’t known was missing.

~~He was so screwed.~~

The Boy-Who-Lived clenched his fist and clutched the special time turner around his neck protectively.

This didn’t make any sense.

He didn’t have a soulmate.

But the hopeful scrawl on his arm seemed to mock him happily and clearly suggested otherwise.

What really confused him, though, was that the black calligraphy looked so ... familiar.

~~Familiar because it brought back memories of pipes and obliviate and-~~

“Ah, Harry Potter, I assume?”

Said boy’s head whipped around to take in Dumbledore, who stood at the office’s entrance with a warm smile on his face.

And a knowing twinkle in his eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating may change as the story progresses!  
> Still working on the tags!  
> The second part will be uploaded within a few days. Everything beyond that is still “written in the stars”. (Or however that quote goes... ^^’)


	2. World in disarray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m currently surviving on diet coke and sarcasm. i should probably add a cookie to that equation. yeah, a cookie sounds nice. 
> 
> since this chapter was originally a drabble it is not incredibly detailed. I added some things already to the previous version, but there are still a lot of things missing. next chapter will be better.., hopefully.~

Soulmate.

~~He could still recall the looks full of pity he received whenever his friends saw his empty wrists.~~

He had a soulmate.

~~Knowing that the person who was supposed to love and cherish him simply didn’t exist was—right next to the absence of his parents in his life—the worst thing that could have happened to him.~~

Merlin. He had an actual soulmate!

Whereas his first instinct had been to panic, there was now an indescribable feeling of hope and longing bubbling in his chest.

Because if the words on his wrists were anything to go by, his soulmate had been waiting for him just as much as he had for them.

_You’re here. You’re finally here. Thought you were dead. You-_

(Never mind that the familiarity of those letters still caused an inexplicable rush of anxiety to course through his body.)

With newfound determination, Harry Potter followed his new head of house, a certain Professor Slughorn, down into the dungeons until they were standing in front of the gloomy entrance to the Slytherin common room.

Maybe this insane mission Dumbledore sent him on wouldn’t turn out to be so bad after all. At least he could, besides trying to get useful information out of Riddle, try to find his soulmate.

A soulmate who was hopefully not too far from his current location... and one that hopefully was not into pure blood mania... and, yeah, maybe he should start concentrating on the topic at hand.

“The password that grants every student entrance to their respective dormitories changes every now and then.“ Slughorn informed, tugging lightly on his robes to straighten out nonexistent wrinkles. „But there’s no need to worry about that, dear boy! I trust that your housemates will be glad to help you out should the need arise!”

‘Glad to help me fall down a staircase perhaps’, Harry thought. 

Slughorn turned to him with a smile. “Ready?”

Harry nodded.

”Wonderful! Now keep in mind, the current password is ‘Power and Control’.”

The first thing he noticed upon entering the common room was that nothing had really changed from what he could still remember from second year. It was still dark, the lake right outside the windows still cast green shadows upon the walls, and there was a small fire crackling in the hearth.

It was, in a very otherworldly sense of the word, rather peaceful.

~~He tried to ignore the constant dripping sound echoing throughout room, but that still didn’t prevent the flashes of dark chambers and black serpents to dance before his eyes.~~

The second thing he noticed was that all eyes were on him.  
Every person that had been reading, chatting or simply dozing off before was now staring at Harry.

“Listen up, everyone! This-“ a hand was placed on his shoulder “is Harry Potter. He’s a transfer student, and I am proud to announce that he has been proven worthy of being sorted into our house.”

There were quiet whispers traded back and forth now.  
Curious expressions on their faces.

But as of now Harry was just glad to say that he hadn’t spotted Riddle... yet. 

He let his fingers ghost over his wrist. Internally wrestling with the impulse to check it again for any new words. 

“Now, without much further ado, I ask all of you to be kind to our new addition. But maybe someone could volunteer to be Harry’s guide for the first few days until he knows where his classes are and has become a little more familiar with this new environment?” Slughorn let his gaze wander over the crowd questioningly. 

Although Harry suspected that he was actually searching for someone specific whom he expected to answer. 

And it wasn’t like he mistook Slughorn’s attempt to spy on him as a selfless act of kindness, either.    

His musings proved to be correct when every student simultaneously turned their head the slightest bit in the same direction and a few stepped aside to let a rather tall, brunet male through, whose blue eyes were fixed Harry’s own in a predatory manner.

~~He wished those flashbacks would just s t o p but he simply couldn’t tune out the low hissing of Parseltongue and the sound of snake skin dragging itself across wet stones and oh Merlin Ginny was-~~

“-Tom Riddle.”

Harry blinked. Slightly perplexed when the dark-lord-to-be inclined his head in a polite nod.

There was a pause.

A quick look around the room revealed that the other students had scattered, and that Slughorn had disappeared off to Merlin knows where  

“Harry. Harry Potter.” He answered reluctantly. Trying to ignore the tingling on his wrist and the unnerving glint in the other’s eyes.

(As well as the bile attempting to claw up his throat at the close proximity of the future-mass-murderer. )

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Harry Potter.” Then, like an afterthought. “I’m sure we will get along just fine.”

  
Yeah. Maybe when hell freezes over and Salazar Slytherin starts step dancing on top of the astronomy tower in a pink skirt. Screw that. Not even then would they be able to get along “just fine”.

  
Without waiting for an answer, Riddle turned around, apparently expecting Harry to follow, and strutted off into the general direction of one of the staircases leading further down into the dungeons.

That realization was accompanied by a sharp tug of panic and a thought that hadn‘t even occurred to him until now.

Was there maybe more than just one path leading into the Chamber of Secrets?

Hah, no. That wasn’t possible.. right? He had to keep it together. Losing his mind during the first few hours here would be... not good.

There was no basilisk he needed to worry about at the moment. There wasn’t. There wasn’t...

~~Rip. Tear. Kill. Let me kill.~~  
~~No no no nonononononono-~~

A sudden wave of calm and reassurance washed over Harry and he released a shaking breath he hadn‘t even noticed he was holding.

The still new soul bond inside his mind was vibrating with poorly concealed worry, and there was a moment‘s worth of confusion before Harry caught on.

His soulmate had felt his distress and had tried to comfort him.

But that was supposed to be impossible.

He hadn‘t even met his soulmate yet. The bond shouldn‘t be that strong.

Harry cast a quick glance down at his wrist, catching the hastily scribbled phrases of:

_Are you okay? Did something happen? Merlin forbid if something happened-..._

He tore his gaze away from the words to turn his attention back to Riddle.

Never turn your back to the enemy.  
He had learned that lesson the hard way.

But the Slytherin hadn‘t moved an inch either. He was simply standing before the staircase with a deep frown on his face and something akin to restlessness in his eyes.

Then his gaze settled back on Harry and his expression smoothed over. “I apologize. I spaced out there for a second. Now, shall we? The boys’ dorms are just down the hall and we need to get you settled in quickly if we want to arrive to dinner on time.”

“...right.”

With a foreboding sense of doom, Harry followed the Dark-Lord-to-be down the stairs.

(This time effectively shutting out the unwelcome images triggered by the dark stone walls encasing them.)

What he couldn‘t quite shut out, however, was the soft hum of soothing emotions bleeding over the bond.  
And suddenly he thought that, just maybe, fate didn‘t hate him so much after all.

~~He was wrong. Again.~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> grammar? who is that? never heard of her


	3. There’s something in the forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Harry meets “the gang”, Riddle is a creep, Orion is...chill?, Abraxas is.. what is he?, and Harry looks at weird portraits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, this is bad, I have so many ideas for this fic but I utterly lack the English vocabulary to write it all down and just... ugghhhh... I should have written this in German. *insert awkward laugh*  
> On this note I’d like to inform you all that:  
> 1\. this story is unbeta-ed  
> 2\. I’m not a native English speaker, so the grammar is far from perfect
> 
> Okay, now that that’s off my chest: enjoy!

Sitting at a table with future death eaters was… awkward. Sitting next to the future dark lord even more so.

Harry would have liked to say that he handled the situation with exceptional wit and charm, but that would have been a blatant lie. He barely restrained himself from strangling Riddle when said boy declared that he couldn’t have Harry sitting beside anybody but himself since he was supposed to be taking care of the new boy.

And the rest of his new housemates didn’t appear to be much less of a menace, either.

“Now, Harry,” the prefect said pleasantly and gestured to the boys sitting closest to them. Harry thought he might have seen them briefly yesterday when Riddle had shown him the Slytherin dormitory, but none had approached him after a stern look from the dark-lord-to-be. “I think it is time I introduce you to the people we share a dorm with.”

“If you must.”

“Of course.” Riddle didn’t miss a beat and nodded in the direction of a dark haired boy with brown eyes, who had his eyebrow raised and looked Harry up and down with something that could be distaste. “This is Dardanos Lestrange.”

“Pleasure.” Lestrange said in a tone that indicated the exact opposite.

“I think not.” Harry replied, ignoring the lump in his throat. Lestrange.  
This boy was a relative of the person who’d killed Sirius.

Riddle’s mouth twitched.  
If the bastard dared to smile Harry might just punch him and damn the consequences.

Thankfully, someone to his left snorted loudly and diverted Harry’s attention from Riddle’s punchable face. When he turned, a guy with short hair and a mischievous grin mock saluted him. “You’ve got bite, don’t you?” he chuckled. “Man, I wish we had more of you in our house.”

“What?”

“Do try not to weird out the new kid on his first day, Nott.” The blond wizard across from Lestrange spoke up, leaning forward to expose a pale complexion and steely eyes. If the drawl hadn’t given it away, the face would have. “I’m Abraxas Malfoy.”  
Awesome. Another of those.  
“That dimwit over there-“

“Hey!”

“Is Samuel Nott.”

“It’s SAM, thank you very much!” Nott huffed, crossing his arms defiantly before adding: “And I am _not_ a dimwit!”

“Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, Nott. Then again, you wouldn’t know, would you?” the black haired pureblood sitting right across from Harry looked up from the big tome in his lap and grinned boyishly. He, too, had almost unhealthily pale skin and only slightly darker eyes than Malfoy. However, there was also a disturbing familiarity to his features that Harry couldn’t quite place.

The boy winked lightly and raised his hand in a half wave. A muggle greeting. “My name’s Orion Black, nice to meet ya.”

Harry choked on dry air. Orion. Orion Black. Sirius’ father.  
Anger and hurt welled up inside of him. Hurt because Sirius was dead, anger because this was Sirius’ father, and the very same person who disowned Sirius for not sharing his opinions on blood purity.

But whenever he used to think about the Blacks, he’d imagined a grim, old man with a constant sneer on his face and a mouth that would only open to yell abuse like the portrait of Sirius’ mother.

He hadn’t imagined him to be like this. Then again, everybody had once been a child. Orion was no exception.

“Likewise.” Harry managed to say after a few seconds of silence, offering a strained smile. He rubbed his wrist where he knew the writing was. It calmed him, somehow, and took away some of the anxiety threatening to take his breath.

Orion considered him for a moment longer, then his eyes drifted back down to the yellowed pages of his book. He hummed once in aknowledgment and seemed to tune everyone else out again.

The introduction went on for a few more minutes. There was Antonin Dolohov, whose smirk sent shivers down Harry’s spine, and Seneca Mulciber, who was as wide as he was tall (Harry made a mental note not to get into a fist fight with him), and Adrastos Rosier, who eyed Harry with nothing short of loathing.

What a happy bunch he managed to end up with.  
It was ridiculous.

“Say, Potter, how come you transferred to Hogwarts? After the beginning of the school year, no less?” Abraxas asked curiously while shoveling a few strips of bacon into his mouth.

He more felt than saw Riddle stilling next to him.

“My godfather died.” Harry said bluntly and downed a cup of pumpkin juice in one huge gulp. “I was homeschooled before.”

“Sorry to hear that.” There was no compassion in that statement. “What about your parents?”

He shoved a toast between his teeth. It tasted like ash. “Dead.”

“Oh.”

Awkward silence.

“Congratulations, Malfoy. That was the most painful conversation I’ve ever had to endure.” Orion flipped his page and fixed the blond wizard with a nasty glare before regarding Harry with a slight grimace. “I apologize. You’d think Slytherin house would know to conduct that information from the war and all the things going on outside of Hogwarts, what with most of them always boasting about their intelligence.”

Harry cracked a smile. “I hear Slytherin is rather known for boasting with skills they don’t possess.”

Orion grinned. All teeth. “My, you really do have bite. I think I like you.”

“Yes, quite the gryffindor, isn’t he?” Riddle folded his hands on the table. “A lion amidst snakes.”

Harry’s heart beat faster. Was the prefect suspecting something? No. He couldn’t. He hadn’t told a soul of his origins.

“I wonder, are you related to the pureblood Potter line? It would certainly fit.”

Hold on, what? Oh, right. He totally forgot that the Potters, likely his grandparents, would still be alive at this point in time. It left him with a bitter taste, knowing he had family here but wasn’t allowed to meet them.

He rubbed his wrist a little harder.

“No, not as far as I know.”

Riddle nodded. “I understand. Potter is, after all, a common muggle surname.”

Lestrange sneered. “So you are a mudblood, then.”

“Dardanos!” Nott yelped, eyes darting back and forth between Harry and Lestrange.

Harry’s eyes narrowed and his fingers found the reassuring weight of his holly wand without any difficulty. “Half-blood, actually.” He said coolly.

Lestrange glared.

Orion snickered.

Riddle cleared his throat and Lestrange was quick to avert his gaze.

“How… curious.” The prefect remarked, a hungry spark in his cold eyes.

Harry clasped his wrist and shifted uncomfortably, but refused to be the first to look away. “How so?”

“Oh, no reason. Was it Grindelwald?”

“Huh?”

“Who killed your family.”

Harry blinked. “What? Oh, yeah. It was.”

“My condolences.”

“Right.”

Riddle studied him like a snake its next kill, and wasn’t that quite the poetic comparison?

“First class will begin in a few minutes. We should hurry.” the prefect said abruptly and rose from the table in one fluid motion.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll be able to find the way on my own.” Harry took a demonstrative sip from his newly filled cup.

Riddle’s jaw locked, but the smile that appeared on his lips was pleasant. “I must insist, Harry. It wouldn’t do for you to be late on your first day.”

“Oh, we could show him!” Nott quipped enthusiastically, practically bouncing in his seat. “Charms, isn’t it?”

Harry grinned victoriously.

Riddle threw a glare in Nott’s direction that had Nott basically folding in on himself and mumble an incoherent apology. Harry wondered how a simple glare could inspire such unadulterated fear, and then quickly decided he didn’t want to know.

Instead of arguing further, however, Riddle inclined his head. “Alright. In that case I trust you won’t reflect badly on our house and make it to the classroom on time.”

The brunet turned on his heel and exited the Great Hall with an air of evil personified. (No, he was not exaggerating! Ok, perhaps a little.) Lestrange, Mulciber, and Malfoy close behind.

Orion looked up from his book. “I suppose I don’t need to tell you that that was a very dumb thing to do?”

“No.”

The pureblood shrugged and continued reading. “Thought so.”

(...)

_Useless. Should have taken… courses… boring…_

Harry huffed a laugh and pulled his sleeve back down, thoroughly amused by his soulmate’s irritation. A student, too, apparently. That meant they were about his age, give or take a few years. He wondered if they lived in England. Maybe, if he concentrated hard enough, he’d be able to tell his soulmate his location, or his name, something that could help them find each other before Harry’s time was up.

Right. Time. Even if he did manage to find the other half of his soul, he’d be forced to leave them once the mission was completed.

Unbidden, his hand reached for the time turner around his neck, conceiled by a white shirt and black school robes.

“I don’t know whether to be amused by your blatant disregard for the lesson or exasparated.”

Harry was startled from his thoughts by a familiar drawl and glanced to the seat on his right, where Abraxas Malfoy was perched with such a straight back that it made Harry ache just by looking at it.

The time traveler coughed a little embarassed upon having been caught in his musings. “Just thinking” he mumbled and picked his quill back up in an attempt to focus on what Professor Binns was saying. To no avail.

Abraxas scoffed. “Don’t get me wrong, I know Binns’ voice is worse than any sleep potion, but” he leaned forward “if you were ‘just thinking’ you wouldn’t have looked at your soulmark like someone just handed you a life sentence in Azkaban.”

Harry looked at him sharply. “And how is that any of your business?”

The blond wizard threw up his hands in a placating gesture. “It’s not. I just wanted to say that you shouldn’t worry too much.”

Was… was Malfoy trying to console him? Merlin, what a strange life he was living. Draco would have a fit if he could see his oh so noble ancestor trying to make smalltalk with the Boy Who Lived.

“Uh, thanks. I guess.”

Abraxas shrugged and turned his attention back to the professor, carefully scribbling down all the dates falling from the ghost’s lips.

The rest of the class passed in silence.

(…)

It was fascinating how much Hogwarts had changed in 50 years, Harry thought while wandering through a number of empty corridors in search of the staircase that would ultimately lead him to the library.

On the first look, everything was the same. But on the second and third look he started spotting statues that weren’t there when he’d last roamed the halls, stairs leading to a whole set of foreign classrooms and portraits with grim looking creatures that kept whispering behind his back.

Harry almost felt like a stranger in his own home.

With a firm shake of his head and a mumbled “get a grip” he forced himself to walk a little faster. The sooner he was in the library the better. He just wished he’d have Hermione with him.

Hermione and Ron. One to keep the mood light and one to keep him on track (and avoid death at the hand of huge snakes and insane professors). Not necessarily in that order. But today had quite clearly shown him how lucky he was to have such reliable friends, and how utterly lost he was without them.

Here, he was alone.

Well, almost.

The gentle press of emotions coming from the soulbond seemed incredibly determined to pull him out of his mental misery, and Harry smiled gently at the worry he could sense that wasn’t his own. Biting his lip, the raven concentrated on reaching back and zeroed in on the fragile bond humming insistently inside his mind, focusing on projecting a feeling that would be reassuring.

The reaction was almost immediate and nausea tackled him full force when a wave of shock and joy that didn’t belong to him hit Harry, followed by a more controlled trickle of guilt and more questioning worry.

Harry rounded a corner, throwing a cautious look over his shoulder while he went. The corridor was still empty apart from him, but he couldn’t quite shake the paranoia he’d been feeling constantly since his arrival and pulled out his wand. Better safe than sorry.

Dumbledore had warned him of the potential dangers and obstacles he might encounter, making sure Harry would be prepared to handle anything thrown his way until the day of his return. Activating the time turner before the set date was supposed to be the absolute last resort.

With some difficulty he sent a gentle wave of calming emotions towards his soulmate in which he hoped the meaning of “I’m fine” and “don’t worry” was being conveyed.

The connection was still difficult to maintain and Harry could feel it quickly draining his energy, so he retreated from within his own head in favor of proceeding his walk and keeping watch of his surroundings, only stopping for a few seconds as he passed another portrait he was sure he’d never seen before. It was nothing special, just a forest reminiscent of the Forbidden Forest with wind carding through the dry leaves. For a moment he thought there was a dark shape lurking behind one of the trees, but when he blinked, it was gone.

Harry took a shuddering breath and continued his march down the empty corridor.

Then, suddenly, an almost-message echoed over the bond that seemed to whisper softly: “ _Liar_.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all the readers out there who decided to stop by! :)


End file.
